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2017 trading, drafting, list management

Whoa! I know it is early to start discussing this stuff but there's not much to do in the off-season and we need a place to do it. There is some overlap with the 'Contracts left to sign' thread and I don't know if they should be merged. But I'm suggesting this as a broader thread all to do with our list management in the 2017-18 off-season. Obviously it is too soon to say much definitively but I don't think it's too soon to start tossing around concepts and ideas. The thread can mature as the season rolls along.

* Who might retire or get delisted?
* Who might we think of drafting?
* Do we have any promising Academy prospects?
* Are there any players we should target for trade?
* Are there any players we should consider trading out?
* Which of our players are we at risk of losing (if any)?
* Which should be our priorities to re-sign? (this is definitely overlap territory with 'Contracts left to sign')
* Let's not limit it to players if anyone has thoughts about coaching or other staff who should be poached/renewed/jettisoned/promoted.

Whose contracts will be up?

I'll begin by reposting the most up-to-date list of our players' contract status I know of and some of my thoughts about which players might be at the end of the road and which players we should prioritise re-signing:

This year Heeney, Joey, Reid and Jones will be our priorities and in roughly that order I suspect. Joey is our best player and Heeney is the future. Not everyone loves Reid and he seems to be hung with an "always injured" label that I don't think he deserves but we definitely need him. KPFs are not a long suit of ours. Buddy and Sammy are pretty much our only KPFs (not counting Pinky). Dawson, Rohan, Hayward, Towers et. al. are third talls at best or just mediums. And Jones is a beast that we would hate to lose. Incidentally, I really hope we start chucking him the guts a bit this year, which may have the added benefit of making a bit of room down back for Newman or Leonardis to start rebounding the ball.

I suppose this also means that whatever departures we have at the end of next season will all come from the first 18 players (trades excepted). I don't expect any of the rest to retire unless forced to do so by injury or other misadventure. I reckon the writing is on the wall for Macca. BJ will have to lift his game or, more likely, be out the door. Talia, Melican and AJ will need to show something. And you would think at least one of the new rookies won't get extended and quite possibly more than one. I think O'Riordan and Melican are our best rookie prospects and I'm almost willing to add Ronke to that list without having seen him.

Free agents

Another thing to keep an eye on is the 2017 free agents list. This is where it can be found - Free Agency - AFL.com.au - but it hasn't been updated for this season yet. I think there was an article on afl.com.au that posted the free agents who haven't re-signed beyond this season yet but I can't find it to post here. If you know, you might like to add it to this thread. I'm not sure if it's headlined by Nat Fyfe (is he going to be a free agent or merely out of contract?). Anyway, I wouldn't think we would try to get him. Given our midfield depth we would save any such mega trade deal for a KPF and we probably don't need to (nor can we afford to) do that this season.

GWS players?

My next thoughts were who might be available from the Giants at the end of next season? They are going to be bursting at the seams in terms of trying to retain players with their salary cap, particularly given the legitimate expectations the players will have of salary increases. Steve Johnson is probably the only top 22 player that will be retiring and that is just not going to create nearly enough room in the salary cap I wouldn't think. With that in mind, here are a list of GWS players whose contracts are up this season:

That is an awful lot of top flight talent that is in need of re-signing. Surely they can't keep them all. Buntine, Kennedy, Finlayson and Tomlinson all might be gettable and worthy of consideration. Their biggest stars (Shiel, Smith, Patton, Kelly) are probably out of our reach even if they were gettable.

Swans Academy

As for Academy talent, I'm not the best informed but I have heard the names Hardman and Bell mentioned. Can anyone confirm - are they part of the Swans Academy and of draft age in 2017? Would we be interested in drafting them? Are they likely NEAFL top ups this year? Who else should be on our radar?

Alright, I hope I've got the ball rolling. Like I said, it is kinda premature, so I won't expect a deluge of responses but if there are others of you who have off-season blues and the inclination to post I'll be interested in your thoughts - here's looking at you, Ludwig, this is a field you generally seem to revel in.

No expert but I think Murray might be a category A rookie this year as his B status would have expired. Does enable the Sans to take on another B rookie any time except for NSW zone or Irish. Maybe a yank or Canuck.

Unlike in previous years when there always seems to be a few obvious departures, 2017 doesn't have any, only a list a the more likely candidates. Normal turnover is around 8 players and it's hard to imagine having less than 5, but where will they come from. Even Toby Pink has a good shot of staying around beyond year 1 from the little can be seen from his highlight reel. He's a pretty good player for the last pick in the draft and not bad for the final player on our list.

I will ignore differentiating between primary and rookie lists as it seems likely that at least the playing availability of rookies will merge with the primary list by 2018, if not this season. Everyone sees it happening. It just depends on the CBA, whenever that gets done. There are also issues surrounding free agency to be resolved, but suspect there will be transition rules if there are changes and FA compensation will still be in place in 2017.

The only retirement looming is McVeigh, although he probably doesn't see it that way. He's had a good run with injury until the last few years and now seems to have persistent calf problems, which is not the kind of injury you want at his age. He should be the kind of player that can go one for a few more years, but our list is too strong to guarantee him a spot in the side, even for this season, let alone next. It could be a hard call, but one that needs to be made, especially with the limited list of departure candidates.

Of the holdover rookies, Melican would be most at risk, going into his 3rd year and only having played one good game in his short career. Fortunately for him, that was the last game of the season. With the departures of the Richards brothers and Abe Davis, Melican and Maibaum will likely get the KPD spots in the reserves this season and we can have a ready comparison of their respective values.

I thought Sam Murray was heading for delisting half way through the season, but he made so much progress by the end of the year. He still has a lot to work on and will have to continue to improve his decision making and awareness of game situations, but he has very good pace and is generally a good, although erratic kick.

As a second year player, Leonardis is also under the pump to continue improving. He has many good traits, but like many young players, needs to improve his consistency. I see him more as a pressure forward than a halfback now.

I doubt that Dawson will have any trouble getting a contract extension. He looks to be a serious talent and may get some senior chances this year.

Of the remaining out of contract players for 2017, only Brandon Jack looks headed for the exit door unless he can find something that shows he can be a regular in the side, which is becoming increasingly harder to do with the addition of several quick forwards and outside mids coming to the club through the draft. He has the tools to make it, but once again, it's his ability to make the right decisions in game situations and finding consistency in his kicking.

Sam Reid is a RFA this year and is a chance to leave for the right price. If he has a good year, I'm sure we will want to keep him. He is a hard match up for a team that already has Buddy and Tippett in the forward line. If he has another injury plagued season, we probably won't care if he goes. As a RFA, we will have the right to match a bid from other clubs, and will certainly try to assure that the contract he gets offered by another club earns us an end of 1st round draft pick.

I don't see any of the other 2017 out of contract players leaving. I think Talia is part of our long term plans for defence and it's pointless to comment of AJ at this stage of his recovery.

I think it's quite probable that one or several contracted players will be up for trade by season end, due mainly to lack of opportunity, and may be part of 'giveaway' trades. It's hard to project who they may be, but Robinson, Marsh and Rose would head my list. I'm not being critical of these players, especially Rose, who I believe is on a good development track, but it's easy to see a scenario where one or more of them get few or even zero senior games. I think Foote has moved into the number 1 emergency midfielder spot ahead of Robbo.

Cunningham is an interesting one. He could be a quality player with all the tools to hold down a senior spot if he can find the right balance between his offensive and defensive games. He became a tackler last year, but didn't get involved enough in attack. He's a true runner with line breaking pace and endurance as well. He also has good skills. He was neck and neck with Jake Lloyd until last year when Lloyd locked down a spot that could have gone to either one. Harry is really the one with more talent, but Jake is the better footballer.

If I had to make a list from most to least likely to depart, excluding new recruits, it might look like this:

McVeigh

BJ

Murray

Melican

Robinson

Marsh

Leonardis

Rose

Cunningham

I think GWS drafted De Boer and Mzungu because they wanted older players who could be delisted easily without any angst. They will once again have quality players getting little game time. If both Melican and AJ fail to make it, I would look at Finlayson and Himmelberg as possible GWS recruits. We are strong enough in other areas.

From our academy, Bell played one or 2 games last year and looked very exciting. And Jake Brown, who was passed over this year, will be available as a 19 yo academy player.

I think we will have only a minor presence in the 2017 draft as we let the many new recruits over the past 2 seasons try to make their way into the senior side. We are more likely to load up for 2018 when Nick Blakey and a few other academy prospects become draft eligible.

What Harry needs is to go on a Ticker Supplements Program.krill-oil-500.jpg
Nothing like Antarctic Krill Oil for building up more ticker, although I prefer munching on raw krill, which can be difficult to find in Northern Thailand, as you might imagine.

imageService.jpg
I'm not sure if COQ 10 really works, but it sounds like it should be good for something. Worth a try.

I've got a feeling we are going to see a different Harry Cunningham this year. By the end of the season you'll be calling him Harry 'Mad Dog' Cunningham, probably because he'll be traded to Footscray.

2017 trading, drafting, list management

I think that Talia is looking very vulnerable at the end of this year if he does not make the side regularly but BJ surely is the most under the gun? I think that he was lucky not to be delisted at the end of 2016 given his inability to break into the seniors in the past two years.

Reid is a big one to watch and is looking at a big drop in salary with us or another team as his contract expires at year's end. He will need to show good form across a lot of games to see otherwise. I hope he does play well and get on the park a lot as st one time he was our likely next star.

Macca is on big money too so his situation will be interesting. But he is such a great leader around the club.

Heeney, Jones and Kennedy will be offered big money to go elsewhere so that will create some challenging salary cap issues for us in re-signing them. What happens there could also have flow on effects in regards to list management next year.

I think the turnover of the list in a year's time will depend on how the players go this season but, all going well, will be significantly less than the past two years.

I doubt Reid will be looking at a big drop in salary. When we signed him to his 5 year contract he was very young and (a) I suspect we would have factored in a substantial amount of performance bonuses, some of which he may not have collected while he has not been on the park; and (b) since then there has been a fair amount of inflation in player salaries. Accordingly, I doubt his wages will fall. Besides I see him as a crucial signing. He is a good player, very versatile, still young, and in a position where we lack depth. We won't let him go easily.

As for Heeney, Jones and Kennedy. Kennedy must surely be on good money already but will still get a pay rise at least in line with salary cap increases although one wonders if he can have any improvement left in him and, if he has hit his peak, how long he can stay there? I'm sure he won't be lured away. Heeney won't be lured away because we (=Tom Harley) have already said we will make re-signing him our "absolute priority". Jones is perhaps the one that might be targeted but I think he has said he wants to make it here at this club and I'm sure we will want to keep him. Doesn't happen too often that players change clubs in those circumstances, but the landscape shifts every year.

We have already cleared a lot of salary cap with retirements in the past two years (which we needed to do), plus the departure of Mitchell and, if Macca retires too, there'll be more cap room (else he'll face a significant pay cut and no guarantee of playing seniors so we'll still get a bit of extra room) plus the further increases in the salary cap then I'm not concerned about our ability to stay within the cap. Indeed it's possible we may have a bit of a war chest ourselves (despite Buddy's contract) given that we have the comp's 4th youngest list. Who knows?

Just had a thought about going early with this thread - it probably isn't that early when you consider there's no doubt that our list managers are thinking about all of this already and probably have been for a long time already.